Now the council has revealed its plan for the centre - a brand new secondary school for at least 900 pupils, projected to open in 2017.

The proposed school will have capacity for six classes of 30 pupils per year from Years 7 to 11, and comes as the education authority faces a steep target of 13,000 new school places over the next five years.

Councillor Linda Kemeny, the county council’s cabinet member for schools, said the school represented "a cornerstone of Surrey’s biggest ever schools investment programme in response to rising demand for places".

“From 2017 this new school will deliver a lot of extra places that the four nearest secondaries don’t have room for, and give value for money to our council tax payers because we already own the centre," she said.

The county claimed the school was needed because the nearby Salesian, Magna Carta, Fullbrook and Jubilee secondary schools would not have enough capacity for the extra places.

A new school is planned at the site of the Runnymede Centre (Photo: TMS)

However, council staff are angry about their treatment and the lack of information given for their removal from the centre.

Union members planned a 'work-in' protest to return to their workplace on Wednesday morning (March 26).

One worker, who asked not to be named, said adoption and fostering teams based at the site had been unable to access vital files and resources to support clients.

They added: “Social workers have been told to work from home, which is a high security risk due to the confidential nature of the files they use.”

They claimed that management entered the centre overnight before their protest and removed computers in order to stop any staff being able to work.

“This is an example of how staff who have not had a pay rise for several years, who willingly moved to help the community in the floods, have been treated.”

A Unison spokesman said: “To simply be told that they are not expected to come back with no consultation or notice, or any kind of dialogue about the suitability of the temporary locations they have been operating from, flies in the face of the positive relationship staff and Unison have seen the council working towards in recent times.”

A spokesperson for the county council said: “Since re-opening the Runnymede Centre after its use as a temporary flood relief hub ended a fortnight ago, council staff have continued their work elsewhere while still having access to its hot-desking, training and meeting facilities.”